First things first, just like every other day in the park, you have to prepare. I knew that I wanted costumes for the party, but I wasn't sure what to put us all in since I also wanted us to be comfortable in the park. Patrick didn't have any interest in dressing up when I was planning our outfits, so I decided that Littlecjc would be Ariel and I would be Ursula. Word of warning, Patrick changed his mind the day we were leaving and really wished he had decided to join us. Costumes are fun and I highly encourage anyone attending the party to wear them. In fact, if we return to MNSSHP again, I plan on doing even more in the costume department. Like I said, this year I didn't know what to expect and I was more concerned about everyone being comfortable. This is how we ended up looking for the party.
Since the party runs from 7-12, we didn't want to go to the park all day long beforehand since we were hoping Littlecjc wouldn't sleep through the party. So we took our time getting up, and then headed over to Disney Springs for shopping and fun.
It amazes me that even though we are at Disney, Littlecjc still gets excited over the little rides here.
They also had fun decorations here!
During this visit, they were testing having a visiting princess at the World of Disney store. I thought this was great, but I believe they have already stopped doing this. On our visit, we met Aurora
Disney Springs is a must for us every trip. Even if you aren't a huge shopper, (I'm not either, but when it comes to Disney, what can I say?) the World of Disney store is worth seeing. There are many photo opts here, and even though many of them haven't changed in many years, we still take photos at all of them during each trip. It's become fun to see how everyone changes from year to year.
After a few hours here, we returned to the hotel for a rest and to get ready for our evening at Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately, Littlecjc did not take a nap during this time. However, we left pretty early for the party and headed to Epcot first. We regretted not getting a Food and Wine Festival pin while at Epcot, and they were only available there. So, with some research, we discovered that they were available at a tiny store just outside of the turnstiles at Epcot. Therefore, we all bussed over to Epcot, and Patrick went through security, but was able to shop for the pins without scanning a ticket to enter the park. We then took the monorail to the ticket and transportation center where we opted to take the ferry to Magic Kingdom. And this, of course, is when Littlecjc decided to take a nap. Even though the party did not start until 7, we were able to enter the park at 4 so I was still happy she decided to nap now instead of during the party. Knowing that we could enter the park early, we were able to plan some fastpasses. Fastpasses aren't available during the party, but by getting our first fastpass at 3:20, we were able to still get 3 in before the party actually started. Since our first pass would expire at 4:20, I picked a visit with Tinkerbell first making sure we would have plenty of time to get through security and into the park.
4:00
Once we entered the park, we were given wristbands to show that we were there for the party, after which we quickly headed to use our first fastpass and visit Tinkerbell, character #1.
After visiting with Tink, those entering the park with bracelets on were guided off to the right before walking down Main St, where a normally closed off path was open that led from down by Tony's Town Square Restaurant up to an entrance between the Plaza Restaurant and the Tomorrowland Terrace. Along this path, we were given our Halloween bags to haul all our candy along with our first sample of the goodies to come during the party. Photographers were also lined up through here taking photos with some of the statues along the walkway and providing some magic.
I think that since Littlecjc was napping that we took our time entering, possibly even backtracking into a store or two to look at the party specific merchandise. As much fun as we had this evening, I guess since it was new to us, I was really focused on taking it all in. I didn't seem to take hardly any pictures this evening for some reason, so hopefully I don't forget too many activities from this evening.
5:00
By 5:00, we decided to wake up Littlecjc so we could all ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, attraction #1 before our fastpasses expired.
After our big roller coaster ride, we headed to the Storybook Circus area, by route past the the little mermaid ride where we took the picture above with King Triton. By 5:25, we were ready to use our final fastpass for the day and ride Barnstormer, attraction #2.
We couldn't leave this area without a flight with Dumbo, attraction 3.
6:00
Even though we had already visited with Ariel during this trip and she isn't a special character only available for the party, we decided that it was worth the wait to see her again since we were dressed in that theme. So, Ariel became character #2.
7:00
Patrick rode Splash Mountain first, making Splash Mountain, attraction #4, and after our swap I made Splash Mountain, attraction #5.
By this time, the party had officially started and it was interesting watching the wall of castmembers control the crowd, directing those without party wristbands out of the park. We had heard great reviews of the parade, so this was a priority for us and we decided to hold down our spot until start time, so that we wouldn't miss anything. We did, however, take turns taking Littlecjc through some of the trick or treat candy lines inside Frontierland.
8:00
The parade, event #6! Oh my goodness, the reviews did not do it justice. This is by far my new favorite parade from Disney. My pictures do not do justice for how amazing this parade was, but here they are anyway. Let's start with the headless horseman who opens the parade.
PS. The Moana bag sitting next to us was the candy bag that we were given at the beginning of our evening, and it was full of candy by the end of the night.
These graveyard men were definitely my favorite part. Sparks were literally fly from their shovels as they drug them across the ground.
And the ghost dancers were beautiful, in that perfectly Halloween way. I guess I really loved the entire Haunted Mansion unit.
And of course, no Halloween is complete without the villains.
Another advantage of watching the parade from the starting point, is that as soon as the parade ended, we were able to rush off into Adventureland and beat some of the parade crowd. Since our group had never been to these parties before, we didn't have a great plan for the evening and we ended up just kind of going with the flow of the evening, not wanting to miss any of the big things. So at this time, we came across the line for Jack Sparrow and decided to wait. We had bad timing though, since he went on break just as we reached the front of the line. After already waiting that long and being that close, we stayed put and stayed for the next set.
9:00
So as 8:00 rolled around, we were meeting our first "special to the party" character. Jack Sparrow became character #3, which was actually really fun since Littlecjc was dressed as a mermaid. She may not have known exactly who he was, but she knew he was a pirate and she liked him.
After meeting Captain Jack Sparrow, we made our way to the Castle. We walked by the Pumpkin King so that I could see him, but we didn't wait in line to meet him and Sally. We did make it in time to catch the Hocus Pocus Villain Spectacular, event #7. We were not at all close to the stage for this, but let's be honest, with the kids this show was not a priority. I enjoyed it, but I was just as happy watching it from the distance and holding down our favorite spot to watch the fireworks. After the show, the guys went on a mission to refill our popcorn buckets. We then had our popcorn snack while waiting for the next castle show.
10:00
At 10:00, Celebrate the Magic, event #8 started. This was the same show that normally plays except that there was an excerpt villain sequence added into it. At 10:15, Hallowishes, event #9 began. Although special fireworks are fun, I honestly think I like Wishes better. I really enjoyed some of the songs included, but overall, nothing seemed too memorable or amazingly perfect between the fireworks and soundtrack. Not that I wasn't so happy to be there and see it, just trying to provide an honest review. After the fireworks, we wanted to get our picture taken in front of the castle, since we didn't get one when we first entered the park.
11:00
After this pit stop, we made our way to Storybook Circus to meet our predetermined number one meet and greet, the Seven Dwarfs, characters #4-10.
After meeting with our priority characters, and hitting up some trick or treat stations in Storybook circus, we made our way over to the Haunted Mansion. We opted not to actually ride the attraction, but we did stop at the exit to take a photo. Unfortunately, this was a waste of our time, because we never saw that picture. Of course, we didn't know that at the time, and thankfully we hit up many trick or treat stations en route and continuing back to Fantasyland. We ended our evening by standing in line for about 10-15 minutes to ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, attraction #10.
Overall, we had so much fun at our first Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and I can't wait to attend another one.
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